The night after she met Lydia at Elara's house, the Queen sat in her office reading a fresh report from the Royal Intelligence. Everything had been prepared and delivered for Lydia's trip, so this report concerned something else. It was about the movement of Julien Armand, Adrien Laurent, and Victor Beaumont. Lydia's suitors and the reason for her disappearance.
Lady Aveline gave each of them a task: to find her daughter. It was her way to see how much effort they were willing to put into finding Lydia, and it was also a test to see how resourceful they were.
According to the report, Victor was still busy lobbying CEOs and politicians, as usual. Adrien seemed to spend more time on his father's media company, which may be related to his effort to find Lydia, or maybe not. Julien was the only one who managed to track Lydia to the flea market. But even then, he only sent one of his men to wander around for a while. Lady Aveline shook her head, disappointed with the men who were meant to become her sons-in-law.
The Royal Intelligence always gave detailed reports, so there was no reason to doubt it. However, that was not entirely the case this time. There was more to those men than what the report suggested.
For example, Julien hadn't sent one of his subordinates to the flea market. He went there by himself. He knew Lydia's disappearance was still a secret, so he had no choice but to do it himself.
In his effort to blend in, Julien decided to wear the cheapest suit in his wardrobe. But even a blind man could tell that he never set foot in a place like this before. The flea market was as foreign to him as the Amazon rainforest. Among the sea of chatter and murmurs, used clothes and patched tents, his pristine three-piece suit stuck out like a sore thumb.
"Dammit, Lydia," said Julien while shoving both of his fists as deep into his jacket pockets as he could, "what were you doing here?"
Julien didn't have the resources of the Royal Intelligence Service, but as the CEO of a big bank, he could pull up the transaction records of their clients anytime he wanted. One of those customers, fortunately, was Lydia Valenrose. According to the system, between 4.00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m., Lydia used her credit card in the flea market ten times.
"Ten times!" whispered Julien, "Who uses a royal credit card ten times in the flea market? I thought you were supposed to have disappeared, so why were you shopping without a care in the world?"
The banking system not only records the time and amount of transactions, but also the names of the merchants. That was why Julien was a bit excited when he received this crucial information. All he had to do was visit the merchant and ask about Lydia. Unfortunately for him, most sellers on the flea market used their own names. They rarely, if ever, registered as a business entity.
In a place where hundreds of sellers collide to offer the best used items to anybody who was walking in their vicinity, it was nearly impossible to find a seller named Mr. Horatio Lucas, or Thomas Martin, or Mrs. Sophie Laurent. So he ended up showing the picture of Lydia on his phone to every seller who was willing to give him the time of day. The answers that he received were different versions of these two:
"If you just want to talk and not buy anything, go away!"
"That's Princess Lydia, isn't it? Why would the princess come to this filthy market? Are you out of your mind?"
Julien was never good at making small talk. So after hearing such responses for an hour and a half, he gave up and went home.
***
The day after Adrien received the concerning news from the Queen, he cleared his schedule and went directly to his father's company. Adrien knew that in this day and age, nobody could escape Social Media. This tool was basically a new form of surveillance, free and crowdsourced. This fact was especially true for public figures.
In this country, no one was more recognizable than a member of the Royal Family. So it didn't matter where Lydia went off to, somebody would snap a picture or a video of her, intentionally or not, and put it on the internet. And when it came to monitoring and manipulating the narrative on social media, nothing could come close to his father's company, the Montaire Television Network, also known as MTN.
He knew the Queen forbade him from talking about Lydia's disappearance to anybody, so Adrien simply said to his father that he needed a new talent for his social media team. Once he got what he wanted, he told them to gather in an empty room in the building, set up their equipment, and told them what he wanted them to do.
"The Royal Palace planned to hold a special event sometime in the near future," said Adrien to his team, "I can't tell you the details, apart from the fact that I will take part in it."
"Wow, congratulations, Sir!"
"As expected from Mr. Adrien."
"Yeah, thank you guys," said Adrien while putting his famous actor smile on full display. "Anyway, one of the highlights of the event would be a quiz between the princess and me."
"Princess Lydia? That's cool. I always want to meet the princess."
"That's so cute. You guys are perfect for each other."
"Right, right, anyway," Adrien put on a much more serious face now, "I need you guys to find as much information about the princess as you can, especially related to places that she likes to visit. Recent ones would be great, but even the ones that she frequents the most would be extremely helpful to me."
"Places? You mean cafe or things like that?"
"Or maybe events that she liked to visit?"
"Yeah, yeah, both of those are great. Start with those. Scour her social media or any account that mentions Lydia and let me know what you find, okay?"
"On it, Boss!"
"Got it, Sir!"
"Okay. Let me know if you find anything. And remember, prioritize the most recent ones," said Adrien as he sat down on the couch and started playing around with his phone.
***
Victor was elated when the Queen asked him to find Lydia. Sure, he genuinely cared about Lydia and wanted to find her as fast as possible. But the biggest reason why he felt so thrilled was that the Queen personally asked him, not Julien nor Adrien. It felt so good to be counted on by the Queen of Montaire herself. Besides, he always reveled whenever he got the chance to outdo his closest rivals.
Victor wanted to get this task done as quickly and as effectively as possible. And he had a solid plan to do so. One of the perks of being a politician and the son of the current Prime Minister was a chance to have a one-on-one meeting with the chief of police. He would ask a huge favor of the old man, one that would normally be rejected and even laughed at. But Victor knew how to apply pressure and when to offer honey in order to get what he wanted.
A young man opened the door of his office and peeked inside. "Excuse me, Sir, the Chief of Police is here to meet you."
"Yes, please let him in," said Victor as he stood up and tightened his tie.
A bald middle-aged man in a worn-out suit entered the room. "Good afternoon, Sir Beaumont."
Victor walked toward the old man and shook his hand, "Ah, Mr. Louis Rossi, thank you very much for coming despite such short notice. Please, sit down. Do you want to drink anything? Coffee, perhaps?"
"It's alright, Sir. I just had a coffee before I came here." Mr. Rossi sat down in the chair in front of Victor's desk. They were sitting face to face now. "So how can I help you, Sir?"
"Still as direct as ever, aren't you?" said Victor as he sat back down in his chair. "Alright then, let me make this quick. There's a situation involving someone under royal protection. The Palace wants it resolved before it reaches the press. There's a… young woman leaving a secure location without authorization. I need to know whether she's still within the capital, and whether she's safe."
"Somebody from the Royal Palace, you say?" Mr. Rossi's face grimaced as he asked that question. "I don't know, Sir. That is a sensitive matter, and I don't know if I could keep something like that from leaking to the public."
Victor paused for a second and then leaned forward. "I understand. Discretion has a cost. I'm prepared to support the department when the budget committee reconvenes."
The Chief of Police stayed silent, his fingers tapped the desk. "I see. I understand. I'll see what I can do."
Victor's expression brightened. "Good man. That's what I'm talking about."
"Will that be all, Sir?" asked Mr. Rossi flatly.
"Yes. That would be all for now, Mr. Rossi."
"In that case, I'll take my leave, if you don't mind. I have other pressing matters to attend to."
"Yes, of course. Let me see you out."
Both men stood up, shook hands, and then walked toward the door. After the Chief of Police left his office, Victor sat back in his seat and let out a big sigh of relief.
"Okay, that should do it."